1Up to Infinity
by Master Pencil
Summary: When Mario collects many 1-Up Mushrooms, he starts to think that he has become immortal. However, he fails to realize that there is a limit for everything.


**1-Up to Infinity**

**By Master Pencil**

Mario, the heroic plumber of The Mushroom Kingdom, was taking a morning walk on a normal sunny day. The rolling green hills and bright sunshine gave him a feeling of calm and serenity. He finally had a break from his many adventures and tasks. There was no way that he would let a perfect day like this go to waste.

"What a day," he mumbled. "Say, what's-a that over there?"

A lonely brick block floated all by itself out in the middle of a green field. It only floated there, showing no signs of movement. It might not have looked special to anyone else, but Mario had suspicious feelings that it might have something of importance in its inside.

He took a running start towards the block and struck underneath it the moment he dashed under. There was a noise, and the block changed into a bare one. A green mushroom crept out from within and landed on Mario. He held it and instantly identified it as a 1-up mushroom.

"Great!" he exclaimed. "Now I-a have an extra life!"

He put it inside his pocket and set off to explore again. Mario felt even more at ease when he knew that the extra life would protect him from an untimely demise. In fact, he received the mushroom's powers when he fell down a hole.

"Mama Mia!" he cried out.

Everything was pitch black all around him. For a moment he couldn't feel a thing in his body until a flash of green light shined around him and he was standing again on firm ground. It was a very strange feeling, but Mario was not surprised. It was the proper effect of a 1-up mushroom to restore his life.

"Well, that was-a good," he said.

The pocket where he stored the mushroom was now empty. Grateful for his recovery, Mario set off again to walk farther down the fields. This time he was more cautious around the area so he wouldn't fall again. To his displeasure however, he did fall again into a hole. It wasn't that he was clumsy or careless, but that this hole happened to appear right after the hole before it that Mario did evade. At any rate, the plumber screamed his way down a soiled slope into a cave.

"Where-a am I?" he asked the darkness around him.

He saw the faint outline of a block, and he quickly bashed it so a fire flower could sprout out. He nabbed it and turned into Fire Mario. With the use of his fireballs, he briefly lit up the rest of the cave. It was a minute later when he discovered a green glitter.

"Huh?!" he blurted.

When he threw another fireball, he saw that the green glitter was coming off a 1-Up mushroom. Pleased, he strolled over to it and picked it up. Then he saw another 1-Up mushroom sitting nearby. He picked that one up as well. To Mario's surprise, another extra life lied nearby. Having so many at one spot was very rare. He picked up that one and noticed that more green glitter floated about.

A slow but steady rise of joy welled up inside Mario, and he went over to take the light block. When he picked it up, he saw clusters of 1-Up mushrooms packed on the cave ceiling. Shocked, he dropped the light block and it stumbled over next to a large group of extra lives on the ground.

"Mama Mia!" he said. "This-a is the extra life jackpot!"

An odd feeling was soon felt when Mario realized that the 1-Ups in his overalls disappeared. Maybe the 1-Ups dissolved into him? That was what usually happened when he collected a few of them. It was assuring how he wouldn't have to toll around cans of 1-Up mushrooms around him.

"Come to-a Papa!" he exclaimed.

So Mario ran across the clusters of extra lives, making a flurry of green glitter flutter into the air as they disappeared into him. Laughing and cheering, Mario made sure that no corner was uncovered. Once he went back to the slope, he found one more cup waiting at its foot. However, it didn't disappear when he touched it.

"I-a reached my limit," he said.

Now he thougt deeply,because he had reached the limit of his extra lives. He was almost guaranteed something truly special. That special thing was the ability to live on with the power of his extra lives. In short, he thought he reached immortality.

"I-a did it!" he then declared. "I'm-a gonna life forever!"

To prove that he was immortal, Mario went back up to the surface and saw a Goomba wandering the field in boredom. He approached the goomba with a smile, and the goomba jumped when he showed up.

"Mario!" he said. "I need to take you out!"

"Go-a right on ahead!" he replied. "I'm-a at your mercy!"

The goomba raised his brow with surprise. Was Mario, the ultimate enemy of Bowser and every goombas' worst nightmare, giving himself up to him? It definitely sounded too good to be true.

"Yeah, right!" he retorted. "There's no way you would kill yourself to the likes of me!"

"Ah, Goomba," Mario said. "You-a don't understand. I-a want to show you something…watch me!"

Mario ran into Goomba, downgrading himself to Small Mario and then he bumped into the goomba once more to cause him to fall underneath the ground in death.

"Bowser's not going to believe this," the goomba mumbled.

He didn't know that Mario reappeared several feet behind him. Without ever knowing what hit him, Mario stomped on the goomba's head, deflating him flat. The goomba then went away into nothingness.

"Yahoo!" cheered Mario. "Nobody's-a gonna stop me now!"

Mario went on a long trek that lasted almost the rest of the day. It was similar to the adventures that he always undertook, but this time he was more careless in his actions. The often nimble and quick plumber took too many falls and he let the enemies have it easy. Although he never lost to them, he took delight in seeing their reactions to his returns from death. It was fun and carefree, but Mario was forgetting one very important thing. He had no idea how many extra lives he had.

After many lives and trials, Mario was now back at the same field he set off from. He should have been at least slightly tired by all of his quest-taking, but he was hardly worn down because of his chargeable energy. He spotted a Monty Mole inspecting the holes of 1-Ups, and he seemed to be in a panicked mood.

"Where are they?!" he exclaimed. "Where's all those 1-Ups?!"

"I-a collected them!" said Mario, coming up to the Monty Mole.

The Monty Mole jumped when he arrived, and his whiskers bristled with frustration.

"Darn it, Mario!" he said. "Why do ya always take every mushroom and coin like it's yours?!"

"That's-a just me," Mario replied. "Do-a you know I'm invincible now?"

The Monty Mole only stood there in confusion, but when he grasped the thought of what Mario meant he began to jump up and down.

"Invincible?!" he yelped. "Partner, yer not invincible! Don't ya know that they have limits?!"

"Limits?" said Mario, forgetting the moment when he collected the last 1-up.

"Yeah, limits, you shoulda known that!" he told him. "Why I'll bet that yer on you're last life too!"

Suddenly, a Piranha Plant snaked out of the pipe behind the Monty Mole and shot a fireball at Mario. Now that he was afraid that the mole might be right, he quickly dodged the attack. He felt a slight bulge in his overalls as he landed on the ground. When he dug in his pocket to see what it was, he was embarrassed to see that it was his last 1-Up mushroom.

"Mama Mia," he groaned. "What was-a I thinking?"

"Well, Mario," said the Monty Mole. "Those 1-Ups are mighty special, but ya know that life itself is always limited. Not even those extra lives protect ya from death. Nothing protects ya from death. That's why your so darn gifted, Mario. You can jump like nobody else can around these parts. I forgive ya for raiding my farm, but never forget that yer talented for a reason. You're gifted for avoiding death, not meeting it. No extra life can do that, they just cover ya should ya mess up. Never forget that."

The Monty Mole left for home and Mario decided to go back to his.

"Maybe-a Monty Mole's right. It-a doesn't make things-a right when you-a think you're everything," he thought.

Something strange was happening at Toad Town when Mario arrived. Toads were running left and right, hands cupped over the sides of their mushroom heads. He spotted Toad sitting next to the wall. Invincibility music was heard all over Town square.

"What's-a going on, Toad?" Mario asked him. "What's-a with all the star music?"

Toad opened his eyes and was about to address Mario until he saw the source of the music and cringed.

"Look and see!" he cried.

Mario did look, and saw Luigi running around the town square. He was shining bright rainbow colors and the music blared from him, filing Mario's ears with it's groovy but crazy beat and repetition.

"Hey bro!" called Luigi. "A bunch of stars just dropped from the sky and now I'm invincible!"

"Mama Mia," his brother replied.


End file.
